March 01, 2010

PS3s Worldwide Experiencing Glitches And Data Corruption Today

Do yourself a favor and do not turn on your Sony PlayStation 3 today if you own one of the older non-slim variations of the console. There's a glitch in the matrix that's causing data loss and other nasty problems worldwide today when it comes to all things PS3. Trophies could be lost, games become unplayable, and good luck trying to access the PlayStation Store. As Kotaku reports, Sony believes it's a PlayStation Network issue, but the mob rule at NeoGAFis having problems with PS3s that are not connected to the network at all. In fact, popular consensus is that there's a bug in the system clock that has left the PS3 believing that today is February 29, 2010. The problem is that 2010 is not a Leap Year. Oops.

What's apparently effed, as speculation goes, is when the internal GMT-tracking rolls over to 3/1. It's either not rolling, or rolling to 2/29, at which point a system tries to add/subtract from 2/29, which it can't do because the front-end calendar doesn't have a 2/29/2010, and shit explodes. Seemed to happen around 4PM PDT, which I think is 12AM GMT, so.

And the PS3 launched in 2006; it's hit 4 2/28s so far. 2007 and 2009 were odd-numbered years; 2008 was an even, and a leap year. 2010 is the first even non-leap-year the system's been around for. If some sort of base-level math is choking on itself, it may have ruled out the odd 2007 and 2009 successfully, but is convinced the even 2010 is a leap year (this part I'm less sure of, but is why leap year could theoretically come into play at some point.)

Well, that's quite the problem. That massive GAF thread has some interesting technical speculation in it if you care to wade through it, but the basic gist is that the error itself could auto-correct itself when the clock rolls over to midnight GMT tonight and the calendar becomes a valid date once again. Any data lost or corrupted may well stay that way though. I think that's just hopeful optimism and speculation, but until Sony makes an announcement about what to do to fix this problem, that's really all we have at this point.

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PS3s Worldwide Experiencing Glitches And Data Corruption Today

Do yourself a favor and do not turn on your Sony PlayStation 3 today if you own one of the older non-slim variations of the console. There's a glitch in the matrix that's causing data loss and other nasty problems worldwide today when it comes to all things PS3. Trophies could be lost, games become unplayable, and good luck trying to access the PlayStation Store. As Kotaku reports, Sony believes it's a PlayStation Network issue, but the mob rule at NeoGAFis having problems with PS3s that are not connected to the network at all. In fact, popular consensus is that there's a bug in the system clock that has left the PS3 believing that today is February 29, 2010. The problem is that 2010 is not a Leap Year. Oops.

What's apparently effed, as speculation goes, is when the internal GMT-tracking rolls over to 3/1. It's either not rolling, or rolling to 2/29, at which point a system tries to add/subtract from 2/29, which it can't do because the front-end calendar doesn't have a 2/29/2010, and shit explodes. Seemed to happen around 4PM PDT, which I think is 12AM GMT, so.

And the PS3 launched in 2006; it's hit 4 2/28s so far. 2007 and 2009 were odd-numbered years; 2008 was an even, and a leap year. 2010 is the first even non-leap-year the system's been around for. If some sort of base-level math is choking on itself, it may have ruled out the odd 2007 and 2009 successfully, but is convinced the even 2010 is a leap year (this part I'm less sure of, but is why leap year could theoretically come into play at some point.)

Well, that's quite the problem. That massive GAF thread has some interesting technical speculation in it if you care to wade through it, but the basic gist is that the error itself could auto-correct itself when the clock rolls over to midnight GMT tonight and the calendar becomes a valid date once again. Any data lost or corrupted may well stay that way though. I think that's just hopeful optimism and speculation, but until Sony makes an announcement about what to do to fix this problem, that's really all we have at this point.